Small Problem
by Stratagem
Summary: When the Castle gets hit by a weird space anomaly and seems to get through without splitting apart, everyone thinks that maybe they are good to go. At least until they find out that the space mice are now space kids. Specifically telepathic Altean space kids. Go figure. Hijinks and shenanigans to follow.


Disclaimer: I don't own VLD!

A/N: I am still getting over the craziness of Season 3. For all intents and purposes, assume that the Shiro in this story is definitely the real Shiro and pilots the Black Lion. This is a humor fic for all intents and purposes, with maybe a tiny side dish of drama. It is a romp of poor science and sci-fi impossibilities.

* * *

 **Small Problem**

Chapter 1

Sirens screamed almost as loud as Hunk as the Castle of Lions was buffeted about by what seemed to be a lightning storm in space. Which, really, should have been impossible. The entire bridge of the ship was flashing with blue warning lights and purple streaks of energy as Allura struggled to keep the castle on course.

Until about two minutes ago, it had been your run-of-the-mill day of universe-saving. Hunk and Pidge had been discussing some kind of anti-gravity gun while Coran expounded to Keith about the gift that was _tridyl_ ball, aka the best anti-gravity ball-based game on Altea. Allura had been scanning the system for Galra to smash into non-existence, and over in the corner Lance played tic-tac-toe with the space mice. Shiro happened to be secretly napping at his console, pretending to look at his screens while he actually snoring softly.

Then chaos decided that was enough peace and quiet for one day, and the space storm appeared.

"We're gonna die!" Hunk shouted as Pidge wrapped her entire body around his arm and pterodactyl-shrieked into his ear. "The ship's going to break apart, and we're all gonna die!"

"Stop yelling, it's not helping," Keith said. He was holding onto Coran and trying to keep them both upright as the ship shimmied violently.

"If I want to yell while I'm dying, that's my right, so don't you go telling me how to die!"

Allura gripped the control posts and gritted her teeth as the ship literally bounced, sending the paladins and Coran into the air. The stabilizers seemed to have stopped working, which meant that the normally still bridge was less so.

When she tried to turn the ship to the right to escape the storm, Coran and all of the paladins besides Shiro slid across the floor, ending up in a heap against one wall. Shiro somehow managed to cling to his console by sheer force of will. Well, actually, all of that honed upper body strength was probably a factor, too.

Over in the paladin plus Coran pile-up, things were going swimmingly.

"Keith, if you don't get your hellishly pointy elbow out of my face, I will disconnect it from your body!"

" _You're_ the one with pointy elbows."

"Number Two, you're squishing me."

"Wait, is Hunk Number Two or am I? I grew a couple inches, I want to be Number Two now. Hurry, Coran, before we die, officially dub me Number Two."

"I'm Number Two, and Pidge, my arm, you're cutting off the circulation—"

"Hunk, seriously, get up!"

Allura decided to solve the majority of their problems and sent the ship climbing up through the storm, which caused the pile-up to slide to the back of the bridge. Keith managed to grab onto one of the chairs, but Coran ended up right against one of the paladin tubes. He got out last yell out before the tube opened, and he disappeared, eaten by the tube slide. Honestly, he was probably safer down there.

"Princess, any idea of how to get out of this?" Shiro asked from where he was hanging onto his console.

"I'm working on it," she said with far more confidence than she felt. Although she had no idea what this anomaly was, it was impossible for it to stretch on forever. They simply needed to get through it with the ship mostly intact.

"Work faster, please," Pidge shouted. She, Lance, and Hunk were attempting to get up from the floor, but when Allura tilted the ship again, they all toppled over.

"I wish she'd stop doing that," Lance groaned. This time Pidge had fallen right on his back, and while she was a tiny little thing, he still felt like someone had dropped a bag of cement on him.

The ship continued to pinball through space, and the castle's lights flickered, eliciting screams from the entire crew. Allura fought for control, wondering if opening a wormhole would be a good idea. Who knew what it would do to the ship if they attempted a jump under these conditions, but she wasn't sure if the ship could take it much longer. Even with the particle barrier up, the defenses were weakening under the onslaught of the anomaly.

"I'm going to create a wormhole," she said, "Everyone, hold on!"

The general consensus from the others was: "Wait, what?"

"Can you do that right now?" Keith asked, his eyes wide.

"Yes. I think. Certainly."

"Well, that just fills me up with confidence," Pidge said. She had taken Allura's command literally and found something to hold on to, which just happened to be Lance's neck.

Lance couldn't say anything because Pidge had a death grip on him and he could hardly breathe, but if he could have, he would've agreed with her.

Allura frowned and glanced over her shoulder at the green paladin. "Do you have a different idea, Pidge?"

"No, she doesn't, no, driver's eyes forward! Eyes on space!" Hunk waved both arms at Allura and then sat back against the wall, hugging Lance and Pidge to his chest. "Well, guys, it sure was fun."

"You've got this, Princess," Shiro said. However, it was a little difficult to take him seriously when he was laying on the floor, clutching the base of his console since every time he tried to get up the ship threatened to break his grip and send him flying.

It was now or never. Allura focused and called forth a wormhole in the middle of the storm. Lightning that shouldn't even have existed crackled around the castle as she plunged the ship into the opening. The ship went dark as it crashed through the wormhole, starting up a whole new round of screeching from the inhabitants of the castle ship.

Finally they came out on the other side of the wormhole, the last streaks of lightning petering out over the nose of the massive spaceship. Everything was eerily calm and still as the lights on the bridge popped back on.

"Is everyone all right?" Allura asked, looking around at her battered paladins.

"Huh. The afterlife looks a lot more like the current life than I thought it would."

"Hunk, we're not dead," Shiro said as he got up off the floor.

"You know, that makes a lot more sense."

Lance certainly looked worse for wear as Hunk and then finally Pidge let go of him. He flopped to the floor and gasped for air, glaring up at the little tech demon who had tried to choke him.

She grinned apologetically. "Hey, at least we lived."

"You crushed my throat," he wheezed dramatically.

"Too bad it didn't seem to damage your voice box," Keith said, earning him a glower from Lance.

"I'll damage _your_ voice box…"

Satisfied that Lance would recover and no one had died during the wormhole jump, Allura turned on a communication link to her advisor. "Coran?"

"I'm fine, Princess!" he answered, sounding chipper, "I'm stuck in the zipline pipe, but it's all right. Now that I'm looking at it, this isn't a very efficient design."

"We'll get you out soon," Allura said. With the bipedal part of the team intact, that left the space mice. Assuming they had hidden somewhere safe, Allura called out to them with her mind.

The blast of mental panic that she received from them instantly gave her a headache. They were all 'freaking out' as the paladins would put it, and all four of them were broadcasting frantically. The mice didn't exactly speak in words but instead in images and feelings, so it was all quite confusing. She put her head in her hands, trying to send out soothing thoughts.

"What's wrong?" Shiro asked as he walked toward her.

"It's the mice, something's happened," Allura said, lifting her head. "We need to find them."

"They were playing with Lance before the crazy storm," Pidge said. She reached out and nudged him in the side with her foot. "Hey, where'd the mice go?"

He sat up and then climbed to his feet, still rubbing his throat. "They dove into the hallway when the alarms started going off."

Allura frowned and headed toward the hall outside the bridge, still trying to calm down the mice as the paladins followed after her. The mice were battering her with images and massive amounts of agitation. She managed to recognize that they were in a large service tube, though she wasn't sure which one. Focusing on them, she was able to pinpoint their location as one of the tubes close to the bridge.

She tried to call them out, but none of them appeared, not even Platt.

"They won't come out," Allura said, peering into the vent opening that the mice must have crawled through to get into the tube.

"Are they hurt?" Hunk asked, looking concerned.

"I don't know," she said, feeling just as worried, "I don't think so, but they're all communicating at once."

"Aw, they're probably just scared," Lance said, suddenly healed from his crushed throat. He leaned toward the vent. "Hey guys, we'll get you some nice mouse snacks and blankets if you come out. Whatever you want!"

No mice.

Pulling out an Altean version of a screwdriver, Hunk started working on opening the vent. Pidge and Lance kept attempting to bribe the mice to come out while Shiro and Keith did their best to help Hunk. Allura continued to try and calm her small friends, but truthfully it was a challenge to keep up with their mental stream of fear and confusion.

Once all the screws were out, Shiro and Hunk pulled the vent off and set it to the side. Automatically, everyone turned to look expectantly at Pidge.

"Fine, fine," she said, "But next time Keith goes into the vent."

"I don't fit!"

"I know, it'll be great." She stepped into Shiro's cupped hands and he gave her the boost she needed to scramble up into the service tube.

The team listened as she clattered her way down the tube, not bothering with stealth. They were, however, startled when she let out a scream. Today was going to go down as one of the most scream-filled days in the castle's history.

"Pidge!" Shiro grabbed the edge of the vent, looking like he was going to attempt to shove his broad-shouldered, six foot plus frame into the tube.

Her retreat echoed off the tube as she rushed backwards and tumbled out of the tube into Shiro's arms. She stared at him with huge eyes and then looked at Allura. "We have a serious problem," she said as Shiro put her down, "Your mice aren't mice anymore."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Pidge started talking faster than her lion could fly, and she had a very speedy lion. "Your mice, they're not mice, they're Alteans, little ones, how is that even possible, I mean, I suppose if we accidentally picked up the mice from an alternate reality and switched them with ours during that storm or if there was some kind of energy in that storm—"

Shiro put a hand on her shoulder. "Pidge, slow down, you're not making any sense."

Pidge took a deep breath and then gestured at the service tube with both hands.

"Your mice. Turned into kids. Small ones."

"And exactly how hard did you hit your head, Pidge?" Lance asked, "'Cause you might have a concussion. We have healing pods for that."

Pidge was about to physically show him how hard you would have to get hit in order to get a concussion when a small blue haired head appeared at the vent opening.

"What the quiznak?!" Lance backed into Hunk who just stared at the tiny intruder. Keith's hand went to his Galra knife since that was his automatic reaction to practically everything that startled him.

Allura found herself staring into a pair of familiar very scared and angry red eyes. She blinked. "Plachu?"

From the mouse-turned-child, she got a very clear feeling of fear and bewilderment plus a sense of recognition at the sound of his name.

How in the rings of Altea had this happened?


End file.
